


Saltless Light

by asparagusmama



Series: Seasons - AU season 5 [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Lewis - Fandom
Genre: Alien weirdness, Angst, Case Fic, Crime Plot, Didcot is so not cool, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, UNIT, canon divergence at season 4, crackfic, not enough to tag it so not to disappoint fans, originally written in 2010, some Doctor Who elements, the Harwell synchroton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-14
Updated: 2011-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-19 10:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three weeks after Cold Summer. Hathaway is in court. Lewis gets side tracked by a sad case, a statistic. Then the bodies start piling up at Harwell, a science park, and Lewis is in danger of losing control of the investigation and his feelings for Hathaway. But first he meets an old friend. If you want just the Crack, then go for the middle chapter only. Tagged rape/non con only for the emotional and physical side effects of Cold Summer. Nothing new really bad happens to Hathaway, I promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second AU Season 5. It is also, more than the others in the series, very much to my daughter's prompts and taste, and is very much a crossover with SF and fantasy elements as well as a long of angst and hurt/comfort with Lewis/Hathaway side of things. if you prefer to read a more straightforward case fic with strong Robbie/James scenes, skip to the next one in this series.
> 
> These stories began as stories made up verbally for my daughter, who has high  
> functioning autism, doesn’t sleep and is obsessed with Lewis. It takes 2-3 Lewis DVDs a night to keep her still and get her to sleep, so on holiday these stories were made up and told by me at night, totally exhausted, changing each time. Last June 2010, unsupported and not coping very well, I stormed out of the house in my wheelchair to the ring road, ready to wheel myself under a truck. Instead, I came home and began to write. I’ve not written fanfic since the 1990s,where I’ve had Star Trek TOS and DS9 and Dr. Who on the net and in zines, under various names. Please be kind to me. Writing these stories down is my only time to myself, as she doesn’t sleep and I’ve been forced to home educate.
> 
> Lewis and Hathaway belong to ITV
> 
> The Counsellor and Lady Julian College is copyrighted and used with kind permission. The offspring and the situation is all my own invention.
> 
> Oxford is owned by the University Colleges, The Crown, The Church of England, Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council, the later who should be lined up against a wall, or even better, all magically transported into a pain ridden disabled body left caring for an autistic child and see how they cope with their savage cuts to care, support, school and charity funding....
> 
> Frank emotional details of dealing with being sexually abused as a child and being raped. My daughter and I are, quite frankly, p-ed off at a sideways hint in a subplot at Hathaway’s childhood, which is then dropped when the writers lose interest, although Fox’s acting is fantastic.

PROLOGUE

 

Lewis sat with Hathaway on a bench in the white and golden corridor of the Oxford Court House, waiting, waiting...

James bit his nails and stared at the floor. This was not at all like giving evidence as a policeman, however much he kept repeating to himself that it was, like a mantra: it’s the same, it’s the same, no difference, no difference... Of course it was different. Very different. The court had already heard the recent, contempory case involving Briony Graham, but this was Laxton’s case, and she was relying on him, for all the other victims she’d managed to find, his evidence was crucial, she trusted him not to fall apart, so ... the same, it’s the same, no difference, no difference...

Lewis put his hand on James’ shoulder to stop him rocking.

“Okay?”

“Nope.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Won’t.”

“You will. And I’ll be here for you – Oh hell!” Lewis swore as his phone buzzed angrily from his jacket pocket. He looked at it, holding it far as possible and frowned. “Have to answer this James. I’m on holiday cover for D. I. Bentley, out at Didcot C.I.D.” He stood and walked away, dialling, just as the usher appeared.

“Mr. James Hathaway.”

Lewis turned and caught James’ terrified gaze. No, it wasn’t the same, how much he’d told James it was, just the very fact he’d not been called by his rank spelled that out. He watched James stand and straighten his tie and set his face in a grim mask of emptiness, no emotion, no feelings, no fear... What did he say? Good luck seemed trite. “Call me as soon as, you know...” but he was interrupted by his call being answered. “Lewis. Your C.I.D called me.” Lewis listened to the sad tale of a mother returning her granddaughter to her daughter following a weekend staying over only to find her daughter dead at the bottom of the stairs. Drugs overdose, possibly not self-inflicted. As he did so he followed James retreating back with his gaze, trying not to think about what the boy was going to have to relive in court having studiously spent 20 years not thinking about it. But the case involving little Briony gave Mortmaigne 12 years, 7 with time off for good behaviour. These historic traces should keep him inside until the bastard died, which is how it should be. That amount of sick perversion and power should never have been allowed to fester unchecked for 40+ years.

*

“Where’s Hathaway?” Hobson looked up from the girl – for she was a girl, not yet twenty, lying at an awful angle at the foot of the stairs.

“Court. Crevecoeur,” Lewis said simply.

“Shit.”

“Looks like she fell – or was pushed? – from the top of the stairs, but they tell me this is drugs?”

“Heroin. Cut with something, possibly. Was affected as she was at the top of the stairs.”

A very young WPC pointed him out to the mother, who sat rocking her granddaughter, a girl of about 18 months to two, sitting on an old, battered red sofa in the one room apart from the kitchen. The stairs were opposite the front door. A badly, cheaply built two up two down 1990s semi. The constable walked up to Lewis, “She found her this morning, bringing back the girl. She had her this weekend so the girl could decorate, so she thought. Moved in a few weeks ago. Girl’s supposed to be clean, which is why she got her daughter and the house. There’s an ex boyfriend, Sir, known to us, a two bit dealer and user. Might not been such an ex. Someone was here this weekend, signs of sexual activity in bedroom.”

Lewis sighed. A sad, routine case. The flotsam and jetsam of society, forgotten, ignored, vilified by certain sections of the press.

“Mrs Andrews, I’m Inspector Lewis. I’m sorry for your loss. Do you feel up to talking?”

“Excuse me Sir, SOCOs have finished and pathologist wants to take the body?”

Lewis sighed. “Fine.”

“Time for PM straight away Robbie. Get back to you with the toxicology.”

“Thanks Laura. Sorry, Mrs Andrews. Perhaps if WPC...?”

“I know Nikki. We all do. She’s our local community officer,” Mrs Andrews said numbly.

“Nikki? Maybe you could take..?”

“Britney.”

“Britney outside.”

As soon as the young WPC tried to prize Britney from her grandmother she started to scream.

“Waiting for social services,” Nikki whispered to Lewis. “She had the kid when the victim was a user, so she’ll probably be allowed to take her home. Mr. Andrews is on his way from work, but he’s got to get back from Swindon.”

“Mrs. Andrews. We’ll talk when your husband arrives. Can I get you something? Another cup of tea?”

“That’s all you police have done since you got here, make me tea.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Andrews.” Lewis shrugged and wandered away, going upstairs to look at the bedrooms and bathroom. Yes, she’s had a man to stay, yes she’d had sex, and yes she’d jacked up, or someone had done it for her. Which? In the bedside cabinet he found a prescription for methadone. The stupid, stupid girl.

*

Two hours later Lewis was walking away from the house. People from the cul de sac were still milling around the incident tape. His phone bleeped. James.

“Crap. Feel like shit. Tried you 3 times. Gone to river. RING.”

Lewis looked up and caught sight of a women walking past, leaning on an old fashioned wooden walking cane, keeping her head down. Slim, small, short hair cut in an elfin design around her Aubrey Hepburn features, tortoiseshell wire rimmed old-fashioned glasses. He thought he knew her, but she was so far out of her comfort zone. Alien drug dealers, he thought, panicked.

“Counsellor!”

She looked up alarmed, then put her head down and scurried away, as fast as she could, leaning heavily on the stick...

“But it is, the Counsellor!”

She stopped and turned. “You are mistaken. It’s Anna. Professor Anna Smith-Masters now. I’m afraid the Counsellor of Lady Julian College is another person entirely.”

Lewis stood in front of her and grabbed her arm, laughing. “No it isn’t. It is you. You haven’t even regenerated. I was at your college a few weeks ago. I thought you’d gone home.”

“Not allowed. Imprisoned on this bloody planet for life, and I can tell you, it really does feel like prison these days,” she spat out.

“Do you remember me?”

“Sergeant Lewis. I’m not likely to forget, am I? I am forever in your debt.”

“It’s Inspector now.”

“Congratulations. I’m a parent now, and I’m on the way to her school. They’ve just excluded her... again, so if you could excuse me Inspector Lewis...”

“I’ll drive you.”

The Counsellor looked up into his eyes and he saw the shame and loneliness, the pain and embarrassment. He dropped it. “Well, it was wonderful to see you again.”

“What happened?” she nodded to the house.

“Overdose, maybe the boyfriend, or an accident.”

“Sad. Lots of sadness around here.”

“Yes.” He watched her walk away, apparently no longer in any need of the stick. He dialled James’ number. No reply.

*

As he got into his car Didcot called again, to tell him they had the boyfriend in custody. Lewis went straight there to interview him. A nasty, sad piece of work: shaven head, unwashed tracky bums and baggy tee shirt on a flabby, overweight body. Tattoos on the arms and neck, a thick neck to match the thick skull. Claimed to love the girl, but Lewis got the impression he liked her dependant on him, something that had stopped once she’d given up the smack. He claimed he’d gone round there once ‘the brat had got to her Nan’s’ and didn’t like Lewis pointing out she was his daughter too. Became quite aggressive.

Lewis gave up and had him thrown in the cells to cool off, charging him with possession and intent to supply. The boy seemed genuinely grief stricken under his warped and mangled emotions, and claimed to have left Sunday night after sex. He claimed she’d refused all hits, every time he’d smoked or jacked up, but Lewis wasn’t sure.

His phone had received eight missed calls and eleven texts, all but one call from James. The other was from Hobson. He called her and arranged to meet at the White Horse at the top of Headly Way.

“Accident,” said Hobson without preamble, “unless the heroin was forced in, but I can find no signs of a struggle. Methadone and heroin and anti depressants, a fatal accidental combination. Poor sausage.”

“Got her ex in custody, although not such an ex, he claims.”

“She’d certainly had sex several times in the last 48 hours of her life, all with the same man, all unprotected. Pregnant at 17, you’d think she’d learn.”

“She won’t now.”

“ Even if you can prove the boyfriend persuaded her to take it, it’s still an accident.”

“Yeah. The lad’s too thick to recognise his own reflection, he couldn’t figure out the prescribed stuff would react. So the smack wasn’t cut with something?"

“Absolutely not. Are you going to get that?”

“Oh hell! I don’t know how to...” The phone stopped ringing.

“What is it Robbie?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“To James?”

“Yes.” His phoned bleeped. He read the text. “Shit.” He showed Laura.

“If you like dead bodies better than me...” she read out, frowning, “then come and get me. What is this?”

“James.”

“Robbie. Go. You’ve been distracting yourself with a sad nothing, a statistic. Go find him.”

*

Robbie didn’t bother with a credit card, just kicked in the front door to James’ flat, running from door through the lounge to kitchen and back again and into the bedroom. James lay on his side, hugging his guitar. An almost empty bottle of wine was on the bedside table, another, empty, rolling on the floor. A – mercifully – almost full tab of his antidepressants he’d been on since the Crevecoeur case also on the bedside table. Worryingly, a kitchen knife covered with blood was on the bed, behind James, staining the white duvet cover.

“James?” Robbie sat down and grabbed him, pulling him around to lie on his back to face him. James yelled, but only in pain, a sharp pain as his cut left wrist scraped the guitar. Robbie grabbed his arm at the elbow, examining the cuts, none too deep. “You stupid, stupid... didn’t you get my texts? I told you...” James just stared at him, blankly. Robbie, freaked out and scared, shook James hard. “You’ve got blood on your guitar. You stupid, stupid boy. Why did you have to..?”

“Where were you? Where have you been? Fucking defence lawyer picking me apart, quotes from the expert psychologist from the prosecution, talking over me like I was some piece of meat and Augustus. Oh God! Augustus in the dock, smiling at me! Defence claimed I was a liar, and then some kind of precocious child slag! Where were you?” James screamed up at him, struggling to get away, but found Robbie was holding his arms far too tightly. “Let go of me.”

Robbie did so, but only to belt James round the side of the head. He’d meant it to be a slap on the face, a gentle kind of slap to bring him out of hysterics, but the anger at receiving a suicide threat by text and the shock at finding James self harming somehow threw itself into the force of his swinging arm, balling his open palm into a fist. He was lucky not to have blacked his eye. He leapt back, horrified at himself.

“Shit, I’m sorry James, I...”

“You fucking bastard!” James yelled and went for him, but without thinking Robbie reacted instinctively, intercepting James’ arm as he tried to punch, twisted his arm behind his back, flipping him over and throwing himself on top of James’ back. James’ blood was spreading everywhere. Immediately Robbie let go of James’ arm, but stayed, laying on top of him, shifting himself to spread his weight more evenly, pushing James’ legs apart with his knees, aware his was hard, even more aware James knew it. “Bastard,” James said again, but quietly.

“Are you going to stay calm?”

“Where were you? I thought you and I...” James began to cry, softly, into the duvet.

Robbie rolled off James to lie by his side and pulled him into a hug. James was shaking and the four slices on his wrist were still oozing blood.

“Sorry.”

“I’m sorry. The truth is I didn’t know what to say, I let some two bit drugs overdose distract me. God, it was tragic. Makes you think, you know, about your own kids, how lucky Val and I were.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.” Robbie sat up and ripped a clean strip off the bloody duvet and started to bandage James’ wrist. “You need this cleaned up probably.”

“Knife was straight out of the dishwasher.”

“How careful of you,” Lewis sniped. “You’re back at work tomorrow. How were you going to explain it?”

“No-one notices. As long as I keep my sleeves down, no-one ever notices.”

“I’ve noticed scars, James, old scars. How long have you been doing this again?”

“Today was the first day, although I held the knife all last night.”

“Shit. You should have called.”

“I’m not spending the night with you!” snapped James.

“God, I’ve noticed.”

“What?”

“What do you think? Every bloody night you come round and as soon as...”

“What? Go on! Say it! I’ve heard it before, at Cambridge, so say it. Don’t think it’ll hurt, because it won’t!” James spat out.

“Yes it will, I know it will. You’re already hurting.”

“My stupid fault. You said so, I’m stupid.”

“You are far from stupid.”

“Don’t think I don’t know the gossip, stupid gay D.S. lets some bastard spike his drink and gets gang raped, same stupid gay D.S who got himself drugged and nearly killed by a transsexual psycho, same stupid kid who should know how to say no...”

“Nobody is saying anything,” Robbie snapped, despairing.

“Same stupid gay D.S. in love with his D.I.”

“Well, aye, that is stupid. I’m nothing to look at, twice your age,” Robbie began, with a smile in his voice, before looking down and kissing James lightly.

“Don’t.” James started to shake violently.

“What do you want, James?”

“To not be so screwed up about this. Layers and layers of Catholic guilt and trauma so piled up I don’t know how to feel. I know what you want!”

Robbie put his hand on James’ cheek. “Come on, pet. We’ll work it out some day. In the meantime, get yourself cleaned up and dressed. I’ll clean your guitar and sort your room. Then I’ll fix your front door.”

“And then?”

“Then we go to mine, so I can get out of these bloody clothes, and then, I’m taking you out for a meal, and after that it’s up to you, and only you.”


	2. Harwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bodies start to pile up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lewis and Hathaway belong to ITV
> 
> UNIT, Torchwood and all the Time Lord paraphernalia belong to the BBC
> 
> The Monster, I thought I’d invented, but my daughter pointed out it comes from an episode of ST:TOS, but which one will give the game away. If the title doesn’t already. Star Trek belongs to Paramount, I think. Long time since I was in that fandom.
> 
> The reference to Midsomer is a local joke, but it belongs to Bentley Productions and ITV.
> 
> The Counsellor and Lady Julian College is copyrighted and used with kind permission. The offspring and the situation is all my own invention.
> 
> Oxford is owned by the University Colleges, The Crown, The Church of England, Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council, the later who should be lined up against a wall, or even better, all magically transported into a pain ridden disabled body left caring for an autistic child and see how they cope with their savage cuts to care, support, school and charity funding....

THE MAIN CHAPTER

Andy Winters made his first round of the night talking on the phone.

“Yeah, I’m sorry sweetheart, I really am, but it’s better for your Mum to go.

“Come on, babes, you know your Mum won’t like that.

“Get a mate to video, yeah, send it to me phone.

“’Course I’m proud of you... Good night Dr. Jones.

“What? Yeah. Old boy, typical scientist, all brown corduroy and sticky up hair. Chasing particles, whatever that means.

“Nice to hear you laugh, sweetheart. Love to your brother. I’ll see you both next Saturday.”

*

Dr. Jennings finished up for the night, filing up her results and Jones’, ready for the morning. She grabbed her hat and bag and left, not noticing the spike registering on the computer monitor as she left the office, walking past the strangely placed, anachronistic heavy Victorian double-doored wardrobe. As she walked down the gleaming new silver and white corridor she suddenly looked over her shoulder, sure she could hear deep breathing.

*

Lewis leant back in his chair, gazing out at the river, wider here than anywhere in Oxford, watching the boats go past, two canal boats and a gleaming white thing obviously belonging to some post nob. Laura Hobson had been right; this gastro pub did an excellent steak. He looked across at James, pushing petit pois around with his fork. He sighed. Sometimes he wanted to force feed him, more so in the last month, since he’d admitted to himself how he felt about James. Another time, he decided. James had spent almost two hours giving evidence in the historic child sexual abuse case involving Augustus Mortmaigne, 15th Marquis of Tygon, or the ‘paedo lord’ as the tabloids had called him. The timing couldn’t have been worse, three weeks previously James Hathaway, his sergeant, and now, his – well, boyfriend was an overly optimistic word given James’ state of mind, not mentioning the supposedly celibate nature of his sexuality, suppressed by Catholic guilt – had been drugged and gang and multiple raped. James didn’t even remember half of what had happened, which was a mercy, Lewis thought, but contrary James begged to differ. He wanted to know what he’d been through.

“James?”

“M’m?”

“Are you going to eat that?”

James shoved a forkful of peas in his mouth and glared defiantly.

“Good. Don’t want you wasting away.” He tried to sound flippant, but how could he be, his lanky thin sergeant had spent the last three weeks going from skinny to emaciated. Miles from Oxford, up river in Midsomer, Robbie Lewis felt relaxed enough to lean across the table and kiss his sergeant. James dropped the fork and kissed back.

*

Andy Winters was on his last round of the night, his flashlight lighting up Jones and Jennings office, the light arcing past the weird old wardrobe, when he thought he heard deep breathing.

“Is anyone there? Anyone? Come out,” he called nervously.

There was a sudden rush of air and a roar, the flashlight rolled to the floor. Andy felt a sudden pain before a deathly calm quiet came over him, although he knew he shouldn’t feel this way, he shouldn’t be unafraid, he should be feeling... His last thought was he would never get to see his daughter dance Odette in her ballet school production, even on video...

*

Two hours later, Bogna, Zuzannah and Sabah unlocked the cleaning cupboard, ready to clean the offices of the shining doughnut synchrotron, when instead of the floor polisher they found the remains of the security guard, a cheerful bloke called Andy, always flirting with the Poles, treating hijabed Sabah with a quieter friendliness.

Bogna screamed, turning her head away while Zuzannah threw up. Sabah shut the door and phoned the police, she’d seen enough violent death to keep her cool, coming from Sudan. However, given all she’d seen in her village and she and her sisters’ journey across Africa and Europe, she had never seen death like this, the strange blue grey ring like marks and mottling.

*

Lewis woke to the phone ringing, back stiff after a night on his own sofa. He met Hathaway at the door of his own bedroom, obviously having received a similar call.

“I’ll drop you at your flat and you can get dressed properly. How’s your wrist?”

“Fine Sir.”

“Don’t call me... Forget it.”

*

Hobson had never seen anything like this death. She had no idea why he was dead or what caused the strange ring patterned mottling and discolouration. Or smell. The smell was atrocious, like nothing on Earth. Two of the SOCOs and a uniformed officer had already been sick and as she looked up she hazarded a guess James Hathaway was about to be the fifth to chuck up that morning. She noted the hidden bandage on the wrist and filed it away as interesting, worthy of asking Robbie why he was covering for the messed up boy.

Nothing to see, nothing to do except wait for the PM and the forensics, Lewis left to find James and then to the girlfriend of the victim in Abingdon. As he left he noticed an open office doorway. Two scientists sat inside, both in a state of shock. They didn’t notice him walk up to the ancient wardrobe and stroke it above its handles. It vibrated slightly, and hummed at his touch, as if an inanimate piece of furniture recognised him, was pleased to see him. When Lewis lifted his finger it crackled slightly with blue artron energy.

*Help me* Lewis felt in his head.

“Shall pet,” he muttered. One of the scientists looked up.

“Did you speak, Inspector?”

“What kind of experiments are you conducting here?”

“There are about 150 research teams, here and from other institutes, home and abroad, currently using the synchrotron Inspector. You’d have to be more specific.”

“Well, you for instance?”

Dr. Jennings smiled condescendingly. “I doubt you would be able to understand Inspector.”

“Try me.”

Dr Jones answered, running his hand through his sticking up thick thatch of white hair, “Well, Inspector, put simple, we are trying to create a stable micro vortex for one nano second in which we want to send a particle through time or across space.”

Lewis glanced at the wardrobe. “You’re right, I don’t understand it. Good job I don’t understand or I might say it sounded dangerous and unethical.”

“Really Inspector? Why?”

“Well, I doubt we humans have the maturity for the responsibility for time travel, but what do I know, I’m just the thickie policeman. Why do you have this wardrobe?”

“Why?” snapped Jones, alarmed.

“A lucky charm. Belonged to my grandmother,” replied Jennings.

“Right.” Lewis left with a subtle glance and touch of the Counsellor’s TARDIS.

*

Lewis was going to send Hathaway to Abingdon alone while he went back to yesterday’s scene of crime to see if he could trace the Counsellor’s whereabouts but one look at his very pale sergeant and he changed his mind.

Hathaway was leaned over some railings, looking out over sports fields, inhaling his foul poison deeply.

“Alright? Everyone pukes from time to time. The smell was out of this world.”

“Sorry Sir.”

“Are you okay?”

“About what?”

“Weird bodies?”

“Bit freaked Sir.”

“Need coffee? I need breakfast.”

“Then what?”

“I told uniform we’d see the girlfriend, inform her. I think we need to let Hobson pretty him up a bit before the poor girl has to ID. She’s not expecting him back ’til gone nine so let’s leave her in peaceful ignorance a bit.”

“Sir?”

“Cut the Sir, James. It’s piss early in the morning and you woke up in my bed. So nice one of us did.”

*

In their office Jones was panicking. “Why? Why did he ask us about the wardrobe? Why?”

“Calm down. He’s a police officer. He can’t know anything. You have to admit, a nineteenth century bit of furniture in this uber twenty first century building is a bit weird. Probably has us down for antique thieves or something. But what about the spike? We didn’t send out a pulse at that time, you’d already shut down for the night.”

“If you look at the readings,” Jones came over and pointed to the screen with his biro, “ the spike is coming back at us, it’s bounced back from target PTQ3.”

“Could it be one of our particles, bouncing back at us?”

“Three days after we last sent one to that target?”

“If we’re successful it could be less than three seconds after we sent it, as far as the particle is concerned.”

“Particles don’t have concerns.”

“You know what I mean.”

*

They went into Didcot, the nearest population centre to Harwell Science, Research and Business Park likely to have anywhere open that early in the morning. The only place they found was Boswell’s, at the end of a small open air mall opposite Didcot Town Council’s attempt to jazz up chavville, the small square around which clustered the cinema and arts centre and few restaurants and cafe bars, all closed. They sat outside, looking down towards the rail station, as hoards of boys in blazers trekked uphill with blank miserable looks. The sun had already burned off the white mist; the sky was already a deep blue, with the promise of a heavenly warm early summer’s day. Who would want to be in school?

Hathaway smoked again and sipped foul machine latte while Lewis waited for his tea to mash and his bacon sandwich to arrive. Lewis allowed himself the luxury of gazing at his sergeant, not knowing quite where to begin in explaining his suspicions, or if, indeed, he should. James’ head was bowed, eyes closed, as if in prayer. What was going on in the lad’s head? Sometimes Lewis wished he’d never read the boy’s statements to Laxton. It made it simultaneously easier and more difficult to be patient with him. It made him angry too, far angrier than he had a right to be. Where were the boy’s parents? If it had been Mark or Lyn he’d have ripped the bastard’s head off. Well, perhaps not, but certainly he’d have gone to the police. How could they not notice, not know?

Lewis hated it when he compared Hathaway to his kids, however close they were in age. It just wasn’t right, especially considering...well. God, he was so silent. Did James suspect the reasons for the weird corpse, or was it just due to his, Lewis’, previous experience with the Counsellor? How strange to see her yesterday and her TARDIS today. He didn’t trust Jones and Jennings; his gut told him they were somehow involved in the security guard’s death.

James had kept his head down so long, Lewis wondered if he were crying. He stared at the tilt of the head, the shape of the cheek bone, dusted with blusher over foundation, daft, vain boy, but could see no tears. A sudden wind ruffled James hair, loosening it. Lewis was so glad he'd stopped keeping it so closely cropped.

Lewis had to cross his legs and discreetly place his hands in his lap as the East European girl brought his sandwich. It was bad enough fancying his sergeant, without getting caught by a sullen waitress.

“What are you thinking?” Hathaway asked suddenly. “Nothing was stolen, no signs of a break in. Why?”

What am I thinking James? How I’d like to just bend you over this table and fuck you senseless and see how you like it, because you will.

“Sir?”

“What? Oh. I’m thinking Drs Jones and Jennings are connected – excuse me.”

Hathaway was confused as his boss leapt up and ran down the road after a woman in a purple dress over a white tee shirt walking with the aid of a stick. While he watched the conversation, suddenly hungry, he ate his boss’ sandwich. He was sure Lewis wouldn’t mind.

Lewis returned with the woman, gallantly pulling out a chair and tucking her under the table.

“This is D.S. Hathaway. What can I get you?”

“Peppermint tea, thank you.”

“James? More coffee?” Lewis smiled. “Something to eat?”

“Coffee would be nice, and one of those pink cupcakes, please Sir.”

“Well, Counsellor, I’ll leave you in my sergeant’s company.”

“Hello James. You don’t look like any police sergeant I’ve met, at least since 1879. Oh brave new world, to have such bright made up sergeants in.”

Hathaway scowled.

“Maybe it’s your glowing skin and curled black lashes, so natural in a blond, or maybe it’s Maybelline? No, Clarins?”

“Body shop.”

“How ethical. Please don’t upset yourself, on my planet, where the young are so old and made up, that’s the men I’m talking about. Both my fathers have gone through phases of having a taste for black eyeliner, but then they were barking mad, so perhaps that’s not the – Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Barking mad?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why slash your wrists? Fun? Attention? Ah, a distraction from emotional pain. Funny, you look like an expensive call boy to me, not a teenage emo.”

Hathaway snarled through his teeth, “I am not a call boy!”

“No. You’re a detective sergeant, apparently. Clever, are you? A loner? Butt of jokes? Not good with people or procedure?”

Hathaway stared.

“No wonder Robbie likes you. I wonder what Val makes of you? Leggy blond with her cheek bones and Morse like qualities.”

Hathaway couldn’t begin to process all this strange woman had revealed, so he took pleasure in telling her, archly as he could, “Mrs. Lewis is dead. So is Chief Inspector Morse. I’ve never met either of them.”

“Oh Rassilon! Poor Robbie Lewis. He was so devoted.”

Lewis returning with the drinks and cake sensed he’d walked in on something. He sat down in silence.

“Robbie, I’m so sorry. Your boy’s just told me about Val. She was so lovely to me that time. Was it cancer?”

“There was an... accident. A hit and run, really...”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s almost 10 years now.”

“And Morse?”

“Longer ago.”

“The booze and fags?”

“Yes,” Lewis sighed. Hathaway hastily put his cigarette back in the box. “What about you? What are you actually doing here, outside Oxford, without your TARDIS, so far from Lady Julian? They take male students now, you know? Even have a male Master.”

“Oh. No, I didn’t know. I try to not... Circumstances, Inspector.” She faked a beam, “I live in Didcot now. Didcot so isn’t cool. In fact, its crap here, where no one reads and they all watch soap operas and something called Big Brother. I’ve never felt so alien and alone,” she confessed. “Well, there was that time in... No, I still had Lady Julian and my TARDIS and that was for the good of...”

“Humanity?” offered Lewis.

“One half, in Britain. Torchwood had other ideas.”

“Torchwood?” asked Hathaway.

“Need to know, sergeant, need to know,” Lewis said

“I will explain, sometime, but n’est pas l’enfant,” the Counsellor finally replied, ignoring James.

“I’m not a child.”

“No. What exactly are you? If I wasn’t so Otheringly tired, I’d be able to read you, but your aura’s burning me up and your mind is all over the place. You freak me, and not many humans do that, boy. Other that slashing your wrists and an overwhelming adoration for your Inspector I cannot read you at all.”

“Counsellor?”

“What?”

“Leave him alone.”

“I can read you, Robbie. Interesting. Human sexuality isn’t usually so fluid in one so old and fixed.”

“Stop this! We didn’t strand you here. Or make you pregnant, and that is fascinating, isn’t it, for a lesbian of an infertile species.”

“Aren’t you bitchy in your new queer incarnation, Robbie.”

“You always were.”

“I was abducted. Ova harvested. Experimented on repeatedly, impregnated repeatedly until a foetus stayed. Rescued by the Doctor, two of him to be precise, captured again, and finally rescued by the Brigadier and a lovely woman, an FBI Officer named Dana. Dear Uncle Alistair got me all the crap I’ve never needed, so here I am, sick, disabled –” she waved the stick “-single mother refugee on benefits in a council house. But, I would never unwish Charlotte, even if the other half of her DNA remains a mystery.”

“What about Sarah Jane Smith?”

“Parted, a long time before Charlotte.”

“I’m sorry.”

The Counsellor shrugged. “It’s okay.”

Lewis put his hand on hers. Hathaway glared at the hands. “I think I’ve found your TARDIS. Give me your address and I’ll let you know.”

“You think?”

“I think it spoke to me.”

The Counsellor poured her tea, adding two brown sugars. She stared at Lewis, and then glanced at Hathaway levelly. “Oh. Dear boy. Forgive me.”

Hathaway flinched as she’d struck him.

“Don’t drown yourself in the white noise. Life is hard, embrace it and move on, don’t dwell dear one.” She reached into her large patchwork bag and pulled out a strange key on a chain and handed it Lewis, reaching into his pocket and pulled out his notepad. She wrote her address and handed it back. Standing, she drained her tea and left without another word. Once she was out of earshot, Hathaway turned on his boss,

“Who is she? What is she?”

“The Counsellor. Morse introduced us. I worked with on her three cases. She is a Time Lady.”

“A what?”

Lewis shrugged. “Up at Harwell there are experiments with transported matter through space and time. What if it’s operating both ways, that they’ve opened a gate? You saw that body. But this is my case,” Lewis hissed at Hathaway, “So you keep that to yourself.”

“Okay,” said Hathaway in a placating voice, one reserved for lunatics, “So, what do we do now?”

“We follow procedure, same as any other case. It’s nine o’clock. As soon as I’ve eaten we go to see Mr. Winters’ girlfriend. Leaves a baby daughter and two kids from a previous marriage, apparently.” He sighed. “And I’m not mad James. You know what you saw back in Barton.”

“Sir.”

*

Andrea Hastings was working on the human protein project. She’d had to wait three hours before the police let her into the building, and another half an hour for the protein crystals to be biked over from the Churchill in Oxford, and now, because of this tragic situation, everyone was behind and the administrator told her she’d be lucky if she could run her scans until six that evening. She’d had to borrow chill storage for the samples, ring her boss, get her ear chewed off and now, finally, she was on the way with the protein crystal samples, hopefully not compromised by the long wait, to get... What was that? Who was there?

“Andy Winters? Is that you? They said you were dead.” Andrea backed away, pressing herself into the wall. “What are you doing? Stay back!”

The crystals smashed on the floor. A whole days work yesterday, another wasted today, she thought numbly before silently screaming as a second of overwhelming pain burned through her until again she was numb, calm, as she watched Andy Winters change, change... No! It couldn’t be possible! And I never even got to have sex, she thought sadly as her consciousness faded out in white noise and light.

*

Lewis sat at his kitchen table, staring morosely down at nothing in particularly, going over the day. Wendy North had been a lovely lady, two children by her previous marriage as well as her baby with Andy Winters. She had been devastated at the news, thank God whatever shit James was putting himself through he’d not lost that ‘priestly’ touch of his with the bereaved. At the mortuary she’d thrown up. The smell was worse than ever, and then there were the strange ringed markings...

Completely drained of salt, Hobson had said. Cause of death, a complete lack of sodium chlorine, impossible but true, in a man who’d lived on ready meals and takeaways. Joke, Robbie, impossible in anyone human, anyone mammal, anything living...

Very funny Laura, he’d snapped. Not like anything on Earth?

Don’t mention that. I’m not contemplating that.

Yeah, but he’d seen the Counsellor, who he would trust with his life and was, as far as he was aware, a pacifist vegan who wasn’t addicted to salt...

Those markings. Nothing on Earth...

The man was well liked and well respected, rotary, pub quiz team, pub darts team, involved in his step kids school as a volunteer, liked by everyone at work, his neighbours, even his ex-wife, who carried a bitterness about his adultery and leaving her for Wendy had admitted he was a really nice bloke, ‘as a rule’. So no motive there.

No motive at work either, despite some high profile experiments and expensive chemicals and technology, nothing had been stolen or damaged, no sign of a break in at all...

A stolen TARDIS? An experiment with opening a vortex to punch a hole through time and/or space? God, it made his mind bend just to think about it. He remembered the eviscerated bodies, the Counsellor, emaciated, wired to the computer, half some squelchy, messy green bio matter, splattered with human blood. The smell then had been incredible, like a charnel house. The Counsellor had screamed at him to get out, that she’d fought and taken control of the damaged shipboard computer, to get out, to get out, it was going to self-destruct. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Morse had got the hell out of there, but he, even more stubborn when he was young, refused to leave, undoing manacles, pulling connects from her brain until he could carry her... so light, like a child, she’d been, as they’d staggered out to the alien countdown and the flames, the smell of blood, negotiating the hatchway and leaping, her still in his arms, hearing Morse yell his name, ‘Robbie!’ for the first time...

“I made you some tea,” said a soft voice in his ear, bringing him out of his reverie.

“James. Thanks, pet.” He looked up. James had showered and changed, his guitar, suit carrier and overnight back dumped on the sofa. “What’s that smell?”

“Just some pasta.”

“Cooking for me now, are you? As long as you eat something too.”

“Plan to. Got to pay rent somehow, if I’m staying with you.”

“You’re staying until you don’t feel like taking a sharp knife to yourself, James. I can think of better ways of paying me rent.”

James sighed and folded his arms, glaring at his boss. “I still keep bleeding,” he said cattily.

Lewis was about to point out it was his own bloody fault when he realised to what James’ was referring to. “Shit. It was a joke.”

*

Dr. Jennings found Andrea Hastings body. She felt like panicking, but realised that would get her nowhere, Jones could panic enough for both of them. She managed to get the body out of the facility and into the boot of the car. On her way home she dumped it into the river at Culham lock. All the time she was in the building she was being observed, but since she was wearing her MP3 Player earphones she never heard the deep, rasping breathing.

*

Early the next morning the three cleaners reluctantly returned to work, comforted to find that Thames Valley Police had provided an overnight uniformed presence instead of the local security company. More cheerfully, they began the thankless task of clearing up after tens of scientists, many enough along the autistic spectrum to struggle with basic concepts such as bins and coasters.

The girls debated on whether to stay together, or split up as usual. Reassured by the policemen they decided they would never finish unless they split up.

Zuzannah was just coming to the office with the old wardrobe when someone came out.

“Tomaz? What are you doing here?” she cried excitedly in Polish.

Rationally, Zuzannah knew Tomaz was in Sweden, they had agreed to work two years abroad, to save for their dream business and apartment, there was no way he could be here.

“Tomaz?”

She didn’t scream as her fiancé morphed into a monstrous thing, she stayed frozen, immobilized, calm as it approached and reached out with huge suckered fingers. She should be afraid, she should scream, run, but as it was, she wondered what Tomaz would have said to their plans falling to dust, to the fact they had to marry straight away. He would never know now, the baby would never be born now...

*

For the second morning in a row Lewis found himself awoken by work calling him in ridiculously early, and for the second morning in a row he woke on his own sofa, his back aching fit to make him swear. Really, he should make the lad sleep here, his chivalry was a tad misplaced, treating Hathaway like a princess, giving him the bed, opening doors for the boy. He was half his age, for God’s sake; tonight he could sleep on the sofa, or at least let Lewis back in his own bed with him. Trust him, in other words. And how was James supposed to trust a man who’d flipped him over and parted his legs in anger. Hell! Had he really done that?

He answered on the sixth ring.

“Lewis.”

Another body at Harwell. Great.

*

“We must stop meeting like this.”

“Same death?”

“Good morning Laura wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Good morning,” Lewis snapped pointedly.

“Get out of bed the wrong side of bed did we?”

“Chance would be a fine thing!” Lewis turned his pointed stare at Hathaway, who was looking as if he was going to throw up again. Lewis’ heart – and face - softened. “Go outside, James.”

“Don’t be so hard on the boy. Yes, same type of death. Want to bet I’m going to find no salt in this body. Can you do me a favour, get all the medical and biological research data over to me.”

“I’ll have to clear it with Innocent.”

“Fine, but don’t leave it too long.”

*

Three hours later, having seen Sabah into a car to take her home after formally identifying her colleague and roommate, Hathaway turned on Lewis, puffing smoke out in his face.

“Been speaking Polish and Arabic long sir? I only ask because you seem to have hidden it well, as in the past...”

“What? What did you say? Don’t be stupid, man, of course I can’t speak... Oh hell! Come on.”

“Where?”

“Back to Harwell.”

*

Lewis reached for the key as he approached the office. Luckily Jennings and Jones were not there. Hathaway followed, silently and dutifully, like a faithful puppy dog.

The key fitted. It turned. The door opened and Lewis stumbled in. Hathaway stood outside, growing more confused and alarmed by his boss’ behaviour by the second, particularly when Lewis’ arm emerged and pulled him inside.

Now, Hathaway may be a bright lad, maybe he’d been a bit of a child prodigy, gaining a scholarship to such an expensive school coming from such a rural, uneducated working class background, certainly bright to get to Cambridge, but however, some things the brain struggles to process, however bright you are. Stepping into a wardrobe, however chunky, double-doored and Victorian it may be, does not prepare you to find yourself standing in a vast room, dusty, dirty, musty and cold.

The walls seemed miles apart, covered in some round indented pattern. There was a huge squashy red sofa in one area, a coffee table and chairs containing something that once might have been cake and tea but had long gone mouldy. There was a hat stand containing women’s hats, something from the Edwardian era, a cloche from the roaring twenties, something a bit hippie... And in the centre, the piece to resistance, a hexagonal table – control panel – console? In the centre of that something glass or perplex and purple, sitting on top of that a toy fluffy lion.

If all this wasn’t too much to take in his boss’ behaviour was even more alarming. Robbie had already walked to one side of the hexagon and leant onto it, placing his hands on to two flat panels. As he did so there was a faint hum, and the lights brightened.

“Thanks for the gift pet, but no thanks.”

Now Robbie Lewis was talking to it.

“I’ll fetch the Counsellor to you.”

He seemed to be listening. He laughed. “If only... Yeah, sure. But not here, pet. It’s a bit suspicious. Although with Sabah and Bogna we’d better keep it up now.”

*

Jones sat by the computer screen, head in his hands, rocking slightly. His prematurely white hair even more on ends that usual. The spike had been off the scale, at approximately three hours before the first murder, and now a second, 24 hours after the first. What had they done? What had they found? What had they let through?

“We have to look, find and neutralise. Panicking doesn’t help, you fool!” snapped Jennings. Really, Jones was becoming a liability.

So engrossed were they, that they never noticed the wardrobe door open and close. They looked up just to see those two detectives standing in front of it, Hathaway’s body obscuring Lewis’ locking of the TARDIS door.

“Inspector. You’re back. I’m afraid we have nothing to add,” said Jennings coldly, with a warning glance to Jones.

Jones stared at the policemen like a startled rabbit. He mustn’t reveal anything. To distract himself he stared at the younger one. Tall, thin, blond, all legs in the tight trousers of his suit. Blue eyes, smooth, beautiful skin, one purple bruise above the eye. He looked like a model, perhaps, or unclothed, off the centrefold of one his secret, dirty magazines. He certainly didn’t look like a policeman, but handcuffs presented possibilities. Jones had certainly succeeded in distracting himself a little too successfully. He became aware that D.I. Lewis was scowling at him as if he wished to tear his head off, literally. At least he wasn’t looking at him as a suspect.

Jennings saw an opportunity for blackmail if these two detectives got too close to the little detecting she’d planned for Jones and herself that night.

“Do you think they’re a couple?” she asked her colleague once the policemen had left.

“That D.I.’s a lucky bastard if they are. Such long legs, such possibilities...”

“I don’t want to know about your depraved fantasies. Against regulations wouldn’t you think?”

“The older one’s probably got a wife too,” Jones contributed, catching on to Jennings’ train of thought.

*

“You drive,” Lewis tossed Hathaway the keys. “This address,” he said once they were in the car, handing Hathaway the pad the Counsellor’s had written down her address. “And give me your badge.”

“What?”

Lewis tinkered with the badge while Hathaway got them increasingly lost and increasingly frustrated and then angry as he tried and failed to navigate the housing estate the Counsellor had depressingly ended up in.

Eventually Lewis noticed they were going around in weird circles, the road layout resembling a child’s doodle, and took over the driving and in two minutes they were pulling into the Counsellor’s carport.

“It’s her,” Lewis said without preamble as the Counsellor opened the door, handing her the TARDIS key. “Do you have a recent passport sized photo?” He held up Hathaway’s badge.

The Counsellor took the key and put the chain around her neck. “Come in. I’ll get one. What do we do with..?”

A child of about nine or ten was jumping from sofa to sofa with a Barbie in each hand. The Barbies appeared to be flying and engaged in some form of Barbie warfare dog fighting.

“No problem. James can baby sit.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Charlotte. Mamma has to go out on important business. I can’t explain yet, so don’t ask. This is my very, very good friend Inspector Lewis from before you were born.”

“When you were at Lady Julian or on Gallifrey mamma?”

“Lady Julian’s, dear one. This is James, his boyfriend. Be good for him.”

Charlotte smiled an evil smile, one inherited from her grandfather. “I’ll try.”

*

“This is my other sergeant, Anna Smith Masters. She’s an expert in all things temporal.”

The Counsellor peered over Jones’ shoulder. “Oh dear. The Regullus system. Regullus VIII I shouldn’t wonder. When was your temporal window?” She leaned across and took the mouse, clicking. “Oh poo. After the collapse, but before they ate each other. Semi sentient and hungry.”

“She’s mad. You can see that Inspector,” Jones said hastily.

“We can sort out our own mistakes Inspector. Give us 24 hours, please.”

“Well,” Lewis put his hand to the back of his neck and looked at the Counsellor. She shook her head.

“You often defer to your sergeants do you? Screwing this one too, are you?”

“Don’t be disgusting!” the Counsellor snapped and walked to the wardrobe. “We’re confiscating this valuable evidence, anyway.”

“We’ve not been able to open that, any way,” Jones argued.

Jennings rolled her eyes. The man was an imbecile. “If you don’t give us 24 hours I’ll tell your boss how you’re poking your pretty boy sergeant, as well as whacking him over the head, and then we’ve not started on using his ident to get this fake in here.”

“Go ahead,” Lewis said coldly, calling her bluff.

“Go fuck yourself,” the Counsellor said distinctly, unlocking the door. Lewis followed her inside. The Counsellor had headed straight to the telepathic circuits, artron energy crackling around the Time Lady and her console. Weakened by having a womb child and the TARDIS deadened by more that 12 years of inactivity, the Counsellor’s knees buckled as she gave what she had to get the dematerialization circuit active.

Outside, a sound grew, a wheezing, groaning kind of sound, just as a wind picked up, ruffling the scientists hair and white lab coats, scattering papers, a sickening, grating sound, that both temporal physicists recognised as the sound of time and space being ripped apart. With a flashing on the top of the wardrobe and a bang it faded out of existence...

*

James Hathaway was exhausted. The Counsellor was obviously very important to Robbie Lewis and obviously struggling the way his cousin Martha had in the early days, with her first daughter, when she was still at Art College, so he bribed the bouncy child with TV and had tried to tidy and clean the living room and kitchen. Charlotte seemed incapable of sitting still, and like a whirlwind, as soon as one piece of the room was tidy she moved in with toys, papers and felt tips. After at least the washing up was loaded in the dishwasher and the place wiped and hoovered he’d given up and given in to her demands, which seemed mostly to involve climbing on him and kicking him whilst swearing, admitting that no, Mamma didn’t know she knew those words, and of course she wasn’t at school, you stupid bitch, she’d been excluded. Finally she’d crashed out on a sofa with him, lying on top of him, fiddling with his hair and asking endless questions about bruises and mascara while they watched back to back Tracy Beaker on CBBC.

Neither of them were prepared for a sudden rush of air, scattering Charlotte’s works of art back across the floor, let alone the sound of a thousand trumpeting electronic elephants before a huge, antique wardrobe solidified in front of them with a heavy thump.

The door opened and out came...

“Mama! Mama!” Charlotte threw herself at the Counsellor, knocking her mother of balance and into Lewis’ arms.

“Oh dear. My parking is a bit rubbish.” The Counsellor surveyed her room with Lewis’ support. Charlotte had disappeared inside.

“Wow. I must confess, Mamma, to not actually believing you.”

“That’s nice, isn’t it? Close your mouth James dear.”

Lewis’ phone rang.  
*

Half an hour later Lewis was in Innocent’s office.

“I’ve just had the most extraordinary complaint about you Lewis.”

“Really, ma’am?”

“More of an accusation, really. Is it true?”

“Is what true ma’am?”

“That you and your sergeant are lovers?”

Lewis coughed and tried to look shocked. “I can honestly say ma’am, I’ve never had sex with James Hathaway.”

“No. No, I didn’t think so. Any closer to finding a motive?”

“Salt, ma’am.”

“What?”

“Salt is the motive, ma’am. I think it’s probably connected to some bizarre science experiment. I need the manpower to go through every single research project that use the facility with a fine toothcomb, and Hobson wants all relevant medical and biological data. If possible ma’am.”

“I’ll do my best. But really, shouldn’t we call in UNIT? Or Torchwood?”

“There’s no reason to suggest this is off world. More a modern day Burke and Hare,” Lewis lied.

“Okay. But we have three bodies now. Much higher and I will have no option, from the PM reports.”

“Hobson doesn’t think...”

“Pathology has different protocols than I do.”

“Three bodies ma’am?”

“Body fished out of Causton riverside parks. Same weird marks. Causton CID only too pleased to hand the body to us.”

*

Hathaway looked up as Lewis stormed into their office, muttering a mantra of swear words under his breathe.

“What?”

“One, Innocent wants to bring in UNIT...”

“Well, maybe Sir...”

“Shut up James. Two, we have another body, this one washed up in the Thames, but same cause of death.”

“Covering their tracks?”

“Yes, the first one was hidden in the stock room, and the second we found just lying in the corridor. We have no way of knowing the sequence with the third, new body. A woman, a research graduate student. 23 bloody years old. We get UNIT in families won’t get bodies back for funerals. No closure. They make piss poor detectives, just shoot everything then issue D-notices and hide everything. How does a bereaved family cope with that?”

Hathaway was startled by the ferocity of Lewis’ anger. “Is there a three?”

“Yes, three, hopefully, for the last time I was able to look my boss in the eye and tell her, truthfully, I’ve not had sex with you.”

Hathaway blushed and looked down.

“I called those bastard scientists bluff and they... Well, they have something to hide so we go back over to Harwell tonight.”

“Tonight?” Hathaway looked up, thinking of the bodies.

“Anything is better than sleeping on my own sofa.”

“I’m sorry. Okay? Do you think this is easy for me, Robbie? I’ve spend years and years wanting you, loving you – okay, I admit it, hating myself for wanting you, but still wanting you and you just ignore me, you don’t notice, or pretend not to notice, which is worse, possibly...”

“You refused to tell me if you were gay, you told me you were celibate, you, my lad, gave off seriously mixed signals, so don’t you have a go at me! I’ve been straight all my life, you think it’s easy to admit to myself how much I love you?”

“Well, it’s all too bloody late now, isn’t it? Because I’m so bloody stupid I can’t tell when I’m being procured for some sick bastard...” Hathaway stopped himself, pulling his sleeves over his hands and putting his arms over his head, curling up and rocking.

“James. Stop it! Stop it...”

Lewis didn’t notice when Ngoti discreetly closed the office door.

*

Lewis and Hathaway didn’t go back to Harwell that night. Instead they went to the Trout for a drink, the Turl for a meal, and then back to Lewis’ flat, spending a chaste night, both in pyjamas, both in Lewis’ bed. Lewis spent all night awake, the proximity of James, asleep and pressed up to him, as trusting as a child, unbearable. He tried reminding himself all James had been through, that the physical scars hadn’t yet healed, let alone the emotional ones. Still bleeding, dear God... It was just his treacherous body didn’t seem to care. At three in the morning Robbie Lewis could stand it no longer, he got up, had a cold shower and drove to Didcot.

*

Meanwhile, Jones and Jennings did go back to Harwell, armed with guns and nets. Jones was terrified, he wanted to call UNIT. Jennings knew that Torchwood would cut their funding if they did that, and neither would like the fact that they had both procured and lost a TARDIS from the Consortium in the USA.

Jennings was determined. The very existence of this creature proved they were on to the right track. All they had to do was stabilize the Wormhole, enlarge it, make it safe and they could send people through to other worlds, other times. They couldn’t get the programme shut down, not now.

Jones and Jennings split up, each going the other way from the other, starting at the office. The building being circular, they would meet the other side.

*

“What the hell?” the Counsellor poked her head out of her bedroom window. “Robbie, do you know what that knocking does to a person’s hearts? It sounded like the police were knocking.”

“I am the police.”

“Are you?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“About what? Temporal fissures, wormholes and salt eating monsters?”

“Mebbe. Later. James, Counsellor. Please. Let me in. It’s freezing out here.”

*

“Jones? Bob? Is that you?”

“So lost. So alone. So hungry. Send me home. Please.”

Jennings turned to run.

*

“I’ll make tea.”

Lewis followed her to the kitchen. “I can’t bear it. It’s driving me crazy.”

“What?” the Counsellor gave one of her hypnotic, unlocking stares.

“What those bastards did to him. His childhood. The abuse. His Catholic guilt. Aagh!” Lewis threw his hands up in despair.

“Tell me?” She never let go of his blue eyes with her suddenly much darker ones.

“His white skin. The smell of him. His soft blond hair, like an angel. The way he looks at me, as if I was some kind of god... I can’t stand not being able to touch him...”

“Well?”

“It’s driving me crazy. 58 is a little late to realise you’re gay, don’t you think?”

“You’re not gay. You loved with a passion so intense it never stopped burning. I saw you with Val. You loved her so completely unconditionally. And now you can do that again. You’re bisexual, not gay. Why would you notice you were bi, you didn’t look at anyone when Val was alive.”

“Unconditional love, aye...”

“Means keeping it in your trousers until the boy is ready.”

“He’s bleeding.”

“Bleeding?”

“From what those bastards did to him.”

“Well, he’s obviously not ready, is he? I didn’t see that in his mind, I saw some manorial place, a summerhouse, a piano, an old man...”

“What?”

“ He’s a child. He’s frightened of the man being angry, of his dad telling him off, his mum being disappointed and disgusted, he’s making bargains with God... It sits like a stone in his psyche, surrounded by rubble, the rubble of carefully built walls that have come tumbling down. Did the recent rape do that?”

“Yes. Can you build the wall back?”

“I was once a psycho-metric counsellor, a long time ago, but not a very good one and I’m not qualified to treat aliens – um, humans. I don’t think it’s healthy for the human brain to engage in telepathic healing. He needs time. And love. I don’t think he’s had much in the way of love, apart from Divine Love, and that’s tearing him apart, isn’t it?”

*

Jennings saw Jones coming up behind her. She’d just run from the alien thing, disguised as Jones. She pumped the clip of bullets into him, startled as red, human blood spurted out from wound after wound. She span around as she heard a voice like Jones’ call her name. She spun round, pulling the trigger on an empty clip. She watched as ‘Jones’ turned into a monster, a real, living breathing, hairy, bug eyed, huge sucker handed monster.

“Why?” it demanded, “Why? Why do you take me from my kind? Why do you kill your mate?”

“I thought it was you! It thought it was you!”

“Why do you want to kill me?”

“Why have you killed our people?”

“Hungry. So hungry. Can you feed me?”

“What do you need?”

“Salt.”

“I maybe able to...”

“Can you send me home?”

“Sorry. No. NO! KEEP BACK!!!”

The creature was not feeding, it was not merciful, it was an avenging angel. Blue light crackled as the creature, full of the excellent salt conductor, electrocuted Jennings. Her screams took ages to fade as she took so long to die...

*

“You need salt tablets Robbie, you need to feed it.”

“Are you sure? It’s not, maybe, an experiment gone wrong, people experimenting outside their licence?”

The Counsellor stared meaningfully. “Try the salt. Then call UNIT. I know you don’t trust them, but trust me on this one, please.”

Lewis’ phone rang. It was control. Harwell had one man down and the other was requesting back up. “Gotta go.”

“Get James up here to baby sit and get me and UNIT there! And salt. Lots of salt. Bags of it,” the Counsellor called to Lewis’ retreating back.

“I hear you Counsellor.”

*

By the time Lewis had arrived they had three more men down. He took charge, calling a serious retreat, getting everyone out of the building and backing off to a safe distance, locking the building down as they went. UNIT were on their way, but Lewis sent three officers to the three nearest 24 hours supermarkets to stockpile salt – instructing them to just requisition under UNIT’s standing orders, remembering the correct protocol and order number.

As the three patrol cars left a silver car skidded to a halt with a squeal of tyres. The Counsellor got out and ran over towards the giant silver doughnut of a building.

“Counsellor!” Lewis called after her.

But the Counsellor could see one of the scientists who had her stolen TARDIS banging at the door.

“No! She’s dead. Her body’s already...” But what if she’d not been fully electrocuted, merely unconscious. How could they leave her?

Hathaway climbed out of the car and ran over to Lewis, stumbling, trying to hide the sudden pain, the fact that running had started the bleeding. Again.

Just as the Counsellor opened the door Lewis arrived to be at her side. Behind him he heard the trucks and jeeps of UNIT arriving. He had seconds left in command. He saw the Counsellor hesitate and back off, realising her mistake.

“Of course, Regullus VIII...” she muttered.

Lewis turned to the creature, disguised as Jennings. “I’ve sent my men for salt. Salt, yes? It’s what you need.”

“You have brought soldiers too?”

“They’re here to help you. Specialised UNIT. They have access to technology that can get you home,” bluffed the Counsellor, just as four UNIT troops led by a black woman she didn’t recognise began to approach, bearing arms.

“You lie.”

Lewis span round. “Stand down. Stand down now. Back off now.”

“Who are you? What’s your authority?” the woman captain demanded.

“I’m Inspector Lewis, Thames Valley CID, but I’ve also been a UNIT special ops, and I only answer to General Lethbridge-Stewart. This is the Counsellor. Ranked third in your black files after the Doctor and the Master.”

“We’re going to feed it,” explained the Counsellor.

“I’ve sent men for salt,” added Lewis.

Just then two of the three cars could be heard returning, sirens and lights blazing. Alarmed, the salt creature jumped, transforming into its true form and grabbed hold of Hathaway who had been standing, startled by Inspector Lewis’ scary revelation.

“Robbie!” shouted the Counsellor.

“Feed me, or I consume this one. Tell the armed ones to stand down.”

“Stand down Captain,” demanded Lewis, his eyes never leaving Hathaway’s. He heard rifles cocked. “I said stand down.”

“I have someone verifying your credentials, Inspector, but in the meantime...”

“For God’s sake! That’s my...”

“Sergeant!” screamed the Counsellor. “His sergeant, and your troops are not letting those police officers through.”

“They have their orders Counsellor.”

The Counsellor began to run towards the uniformed officers, “Throw me a bag!” she screamed as loud as she could. She caught a two-kilo bag at a run and span round and ran up to the monster, skidding to a stop in front of it.

“Here. Yummy, yummy salt. Let me have the boy.” She poked a finger through the plastic. Salt began to spill out on the ground. The monster moved toward it. She chucked it away. It let go of Hathaway and moved towards the salt. Hathaway’s legs buckled as the Counsellor caught his arm. Suddenly Lewis was there, supporting him by the waist. Tugging Hathaway’s arm the Counsellor grabbed Lewis’s wrist and tugged at it. “Down!” she screamed and leapt, momentum pulling Lewis into the jump, half carrying Hathaway with him. Both the Counsellor and Lewis shielded Hathaway’s body as a fierce spray of bullets were pumped into the creature from so far away, yanked across and time and space, abandoned, afraid, hungry...

“Sorry to be a bit presumptive, but that’s one mistake I’m not making again,” the Counsellor said, sitting up.

“They would have shot us as well?” Hathaway asked, still lying under Lewis, thinking it was getting to be a habit he could quite enjoy.

“In a heartsbeat,” said the Counsellor.

“And she knows, from experience,” Lewis said bitterly, sitting up, noticing the blood on the seat of Hathaway’s jeans and feeling slightly sick. “James, why has the bloody hospital said you were fit for work?”

“They don’t know,” he mumbled in reply, sitting up slowly.

“What the hell are you doing here anywhere? You’re supposed to be baby sitting!”

“Ah, well that’s my fault. I thought you offered me James for convenience, not his safety. I called my dear friend Molly as soon as you left. She’s the only person I’ve known who can cope with baby-sitting Charlotte, although James here has done an excellent job. She seems to dote on your boy.”

“Well, so do I.”

“I am here, you know.”

“Good, take the Counsellor home. I know how you hate all the crap, Counsellor. I’ll be some time finishing up here. I’ll see you at my flat, James.” Lewis tossed James a set of keys. “Spare set. Yours, now.” He sighed and sniffed. “This is going to be a long night – day,” he corrected himself, as the sun was already full up.

“What?”

“OSA forms, debriefing the uniform, D-notices, reports to be filed, Innocent to be dealt with. God, the paperwork on a police-UNIT operation fries your brain. I’ll be bringing you your OSA and D-notice when I get home. Just sign them and don’t argue, okay?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Bye Robbie.”

“Thanks Counsellor, you know, for everything...” He gave her a meaningful look.

“No problem. Well, home James. Wow! How cool is that.”

“Very funny, not,” Hathaway muttered angrily.


	3. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hathaway begins to deal with the recent past with some Gallifreyan healing. Fluff at the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lewis and Hathaway belong to ITV
> 
> The Counsellor and Lady Julian College is copyrighted and used with kind permission. The offspring and the situation is all my own invention.
> 
> Oxford is owned by the University Colleges, The Crown, The Church of England, Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council, the later who should be lined up against a wall, or even better, all magically transported into a pain ridden disabled body left caring for an autistic child and see how they cope with their savage cuts to care, support, school and charity funding....
> 
> Frank emotional details of dealing with being sexually abused as a child and being raped. My daughter and I are, quite frankly, p-ed off at a sideways hint in a subplot at Hathaway’s childhood, which is then dropped when the writers lose interest, although Fox’s acting is fantastic

EPILOGUE

Once they got in to the Counsellor’s house she seemed to collapse. Alarmed, James caught her and lifted her on to the sofa. She was shaking so much he grabbed a folded blanket from a pile behind the sofa and covered her. Of Charlotte and her baby sitter there was no sign.

“What? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Sorry to disappoint. Sci Fi doesn’t give you the image of the sick alien. I’m not well, my people aren’t made to reproduce, so we do it by genetic loom. For the past ten years or so – well, think a cross between MS and Lupus and ME with shades of Fibromyalgia? Not exactly going to kill me, but enough of a retro infection to follow me if I regenerate.”

“Nothing you are saying makes sense, but the fact you’re sick. Can I get you a cup of tea?”

“Please. Lots of sugar. Toast would be nice. You’re a very kind boy.”

“I’m not exactly a boy, I’m over 30.”

“Well, I’m over 900, so to me you are the smallest of boys. Although, you’re not exactly small, are you. Lanky git, more like. God, I feel like absolute shit. How you doing James?”

“Me?” James came out of the kitchen. “Ah. That’s not easy to answer. I need time to think things through. There’s a note on the kitchen table, your friend took Charlotte to Sainsbury’s for breakfast and then on to the park. She said she’s exhausted and to text her when you’re home. Do you want me to take Charlotte out of your way?”

“That would be lovely. She loves to swim. You can borrow a towel and buy a bathing costume at the pool.”

“Bathing costume?” mouthed Hathaway as he wandered back into the kitchen. The Counsellor was sitting up when he returned with a tray containing a pot of tea, the sugar bowl, a carton of soya milk, a plate of toast and soya margarine, along with mugs, plates and a knife and a spoon.

“Forgive my curiosity, but what in particular do you need to think through: court, your childhood, the recent rape, meeting a batty alien with a hyperactive child, scary alien monsters killing people for salt, UNIT or Robbie Lewis?” While asking this, the Counsellor poured herself tea and sugared it generously, before ‘buttering’ her toast.

James Hathaway stared at her, methodically going through her list in his mind.

Court? Done with. Didn’t have to speak of the abuse ever again, unless he wanted to. Haunted by the defence lawyer’s comments, but that was their job, to defend their client. Besides, he’d protected his parents, which had made it easier to be taunted about being a bright boy but not telling anyone. He had told, and his mum had believed him, it’s just his dad took the bribe. Pimped him. And he was never going to tell anyone that.

The abuse? He’d survived. He wasn’t an alcoholic, a drug addict or a prostitute. He wasn’t on the streets, in a mental hospital or dead. He’d not turned into some form of twisted abuser himself or committed any crime, ever. So far so good. Yes. He’d survived.

The rape? He shuddered. His fault. He’d been so stupid and naive. He still only had the vaguest of memories, shadows and flashes and small moments of clarity. Of panicking and fighting so hard they’d started hitting him. Of pouring more vodka with more of the drug dissolved down his throat. Of a major row in Russian once his badge had been found. Fighting back again and being tied up. The clearest memories of all were D.I. Harding walking back and threatening the police but offering to turn a blind eye for some of the drug and of waking up at Marsden Ferry Allotments, naked, in pain, afraid. There were shadowy feelings, as if his body remembered, but to be honest he wasn’t sure how much that was recent and how much was his childhood. He could piece together what had happened from the forensics report more than he could actually remember. And it terrified him, a huge black hole in his mind.

“I can help you unlock it, if you want, but I’m not sure telepathic healing is for humans,” the Counsellor murmured.

James, startled, stared, “You can read my mind?”

“You wanted me to.”

James shrugged, perhaps this was a possibility, the strange alien woman, for all her eccentricity, engendered trust, and she had saved his life.

Aliens? He supposed the real responsibility rested with Drs Jones and Jennings, the creature was lost, frightened and hungry, responding most likely to instinct. Human arrogance and greed, usual motives one came across as a detective. He’d already struggled with the alien thing and learnt about UNIT back in Barton in the winter. It still freaked him out, and he’d rather not think of it. Nowhere in the Bible did God tell humanity he made anyone else. But perhaps He didn’t need to. Jainism talked of Universal Wheel of Life, endless cycles of rebirth throughout the cosmos, animal and human, Earth and elsewhere. Meera, who had studied theology with him at Cambridge, had a theory that all convincing aliens and fantasy creatures in literature and on TV were the result of a past life memory. But she had been big into role-playing and fantasy, so it could have just been a sophisticated justification. The Qu’ran talked of Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and told humanity ‘Allah never ceases to tire of Creation’, so perhaps that could be interpreted as other planets, if you needed to...

“Monotheism exists on all planets in all times. My speciality, my thesis, my reason for exile. I’m a Dei-ist.”

“Oh?”

“You possibly think too much.”

“Possibly.”

“As an avoidance technique I supposed it has its uses. Molly’s on her way back with Charlotte. Will you take her swimming and give her lunch at the pool cafe?”

“Sure.”

“And Robbie Lewis?”

“I love him.”

“And you just found out he’s a special black ops operative for a quasi military top secret organisation that deal with aliens.”

“Yeah. And I love him. He was already a complete hero in my eyes, so I didn’t need more proof.”

“Oh yuk! How slushy is that James! Robbie Lewis has carried me out, half dead, from an exploding space ship but you don’t see me wanting to drop my knickers for him, do you?”

“Stop looking into my mind! Anyway, I loved him before that.”

“Oh, stop it! Come upstairs and I’ll get you a towel.”

Upstairs, in the Counsellor’s room, the TARDIS was now relocated, looking to all intents and purposes a modern Ikea wardrobe in a corner. The Counsellor opened the door and beckoned. James followed, confused.

“Why is it bigger on the inside? Why does it now look like a modern wardrobe?”

“Chameleon circuit. I arrived in 1879, time for a change. It’s dimensionally transcendental.”

“Oh. Which means?”

“It’s bigger on the inside.” She opened a door. They left the console room and wandered down a corridor, half lit and gloomy. The Counsellor kept opening doors.

“This is a long way for a towel.”

“We’re looking for something else, obviously the towels are in the human house. Ah. Wardrobe, not what I was looking for but go on, help yourself dear boy.”

“Like what?”

“Some unbloodied jeans and knickers and some swim trunks. Honestly. Its a wardrobe!”

“It’s a stonking great big room.”

“With clothes. Yes, dear, lots of lovely clothes. Find something decent and come away. You can play another time. I’m hardly going to hear Molly ring the doorbell in here.”

James carried on following her deeper into her TARDIS, until...

“Aha. Here we are.” They entered a white, brightly lit room, like a hospital. “The medical wing. Hop up on to the bed, James.”

“What?” But he did as he was told, curiously staring as the Counsellor walked over to a desk, which was in fact a horizontal flat touch screen. She was obviously scrolling along pages on the screen, looking for something. When she found it she tapped on the screen and a few seconds later, beside the screen, on a blue disk was a sparkle of fizzing light motes and then a syringe appeared. She walked over to him. “What’s that? Is it a needle,” he asked nervously.

“A needle? Ugh! No, of course not. It’s a hypospray, and what’s inside is going to stop you bleeding. Lie back and lift up your tee shirt.”

“You’re not going to put it..?” James began nervously.

“What? Don’t be disgusting. No.” She pulled up his tee shirt and pushed him back. “Lie flat. I need to feel...”

“What?”

“Sigmoid colon, a bend, aha, just here, on the left in humans, not much else rattling about just there, can’t miss.” There was a hiss, no pain. “The nanites will work their way down until they reach far enough down, to the rectum. They will heal all rips and tears in the lining and then dissolve.”

“Oh.”

“It could take months to repair itself, even if you starved yourself, which you’ve been doing, haven’t you?”

“Not literally.”

“Oh, that’s alright then.”

“Thank you.”

*

When Lewis came home late that evening something smelt wonderful. He wandered into the kitchen, noticing James asleep on the sofa, cradling his guitar. He opened the oven door and peered inside. Shepherd’s pie. Wow. On the hob a pan full of carrots and peas waiting for him to come home, he supposed.

“Hello.”

“I thought you were asleep?”

“I was. Are you hungry? Do you want me to put the vegetables on?”

“Uh. Yeah. Marry me?”

James stared, not trusting himself to speak. It sounded like a joke. Not a funny one.

“You look knackered,” Robbie told him, sitting beside him and reaching for the remote control. On the TV the local news talked about an experimental gas that had leaked and claimed the lives of several employees and service personal trying to contain it over at Harwell. The official story.

“Not so much knackered as half drowned, repeatedly punched, insulted and kicked in the knackers. Don’t ever ask me to baby-sit that little monster again. Sir.”

“Don’t call me sir. Not here.”

“But baby-sitting her was an order, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. And if it comes to it, I might have to order you again, if I need the Counsellor’s input. But these things are rare, this is only my seventh incident involving alien weirdness.”

“That’s its official designation is it, alien weirdness?”

“Yeah.” Lewis leaned over to kiss James, surprised and pleased at how passionately he kissed back. He moved the guitar out of the way and rolled on top of James, stopping only when he felt James’ shoulders tense. He sat up. “Go get me tea then, pet.”

At least a hundred sarcastic put downs sprang to James’ mind. Instead he decided he quite like being spoken to like that, at least by Robbie Lewis. However, he decided to keep quite about the Gallifreyan cure, the bleeding provided too good an excuse to be left alone, without pressure.


End file.
